Andres Espiñeira didn’t believe it when a caller claiming to be from Google wanted his company, Pixorial, to build an application for use with a new Google product. The Centennial-based, online video-sharing technology company that Espiñeira had founded had critical acclaim in the technology trade press and hundreds of thousands of users around the world. But this was Google calling about working with Pixorial? “I literally thought it was a prank,” Espiñeira said, chuckling. That call from Google, in early 2012, changed Pixorial, but not in the storybook ways of tech lore. It didn’t lead to explosive growth and newfound riches — at least not yet. Rather, it made Pixorial knuckle down on one project and build the best technology it could, Espiñeira said. Employees had to write a software application that would be one of 18 apps initially offered to users of the new Google Drive file storage and sharing product. Pixorial had never had to crank out something on a tight timeline specifically to meet the product expectations of an outside company, Espiñeira said. “It completely transformed the business, and it helped us understand how well we can do when we’re focused on getting a priority thing done,” he said. Google Drive launched 14 months ago, and the lessons learned from being involved helped Pixorial focus on its next project. It built its mobile app, called Krowds, to help people share and find mobile-phone videos with people around them. Krowds differs from the six-second or 15-second video-sharing services on Twitter and Facebook. Using Krowds, users can share longer videos, maybe a few minutes in length, with others nearby. Espiñeira wants video sharing to be social, yes, but also personal. He founded Pixorial as a platform for sharing of all those family memories — reunions, weddings, sporting events, first plays — that too often stay unseen on people’s phones and cameras. Pixorial’s initial product, an online video editing and storage service that’s been praised in tech and video industry blogs, has attracted more than 500,000 users. Pixorial’s customer base doubled last year, and it keeps growing, Espiñeira said. But Pixorial’s revenue hasn’t been large enough to get its brand in front of consumers on a massive scale. So Pixorial’s become more business-to-business focused. Instead of a direct-to-consumer business model, it’s pursuing partnerships with other businesses that may have a reason to want people to share video; it’s become the online video-editing service other online companies can brand as their own. Pixorial has explored venture-capital funding and making a big play for explosive consumer adoption. But Espiñeira isn’t eager for a deal that would create pressure to change Pixorial or bring aboard directors willing to sell Pixorial to an acquirer with no interest in letting the Pixorial’s engineers try to finish what they’ve started, he said. Espiñeira, one of the early employees of early dot-com giant Netscape, left the industry and Silicon Valley for Colorado in search of a different perspective on technology. He doesn’t want his company, or its employees, sold short in pursuit of short-term gain in which Pixorial’s technology is dropped so that a few people can cash out. “I started this company to solve a particular problem, and I’d rather fail at that than see this turned into a different company,” he said.